The last hero of my generation must’ve been the late James Bond. The suave, supersmart spy and secret agent on Her Majesty’s service has not been seen on the wide screen since 2021 in “No Time to Die,” where he was killed to protect the producers’ franchise.

Will there ever be a resurrection? How will it happen? But then Hollywood is capable of miracles, including raising the dead. That being the case, yes, there has to be a next Bond! Will he be another blond gentleman like Daniel Craig? Or maybe it will be a Ms. Bond this time, and why not a black actor such as Idris Elba?

Only the name of the up-and-coming director of the next JB movie has been announced. It will take a supersleuth to find out who will play the new Bond.

Talk of heroes in our household popped up as a consequence of the “Superman” movie we watched a few nights ago in Quezon City. David Corenswet plays the superhero whose vulnerability to kryptonite (from the planet Krypton, where he was born) is the one thing that makes him human like the rest of us nonheroes.

Who wants to be a hero who will die, suffer physical pain and endure the aches and slow decline of youth while staring mortality in the face? The cinema heroes of 20, 30 years ago included cowboys (like Clint Eastwood), gladiators (like Russell Crowe), and a diverse field of wonderful beings like Captain America, Wonder Woman, Aquaman. Perhaps because today’s young generation of viewers are not so easily fooled, the population of heroes and heroines galore has appropriately thinned.

No more do we see comic books touting the heroics of The Lone Ranger and his faithful Tonto, Mandrake the Magician, the Three Musketeers – when was the last time you saw a comic book? Archie and his gang of perennial teenagers have disappeared, too.

Speaking of the past, I was told by an inner-circle member of Mme. Imelda R. Marcos that when she met with Chairman Mao Zedong in the ‘70s to negotiate an oil deal, he did not buss her on the cheek as I recalled in this space last July 5, but “he kissed her hand.” On such footnotes is history based.